Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

Salthaven is a 16 page module for Cairn written by Robin Fjärem. It has minimal art — maybe 5 pieces in total, and procedurally generated maps. A small island is plagued by savage storms, and only you can solve the mystery!

There is a lot in these 16 pages, and honestly it could use some breathing space, but the dense 2-column layout has a charm to it to anyone who’s read too many issues of Dungeon magazine. It’s certainly short enough and the headings are clear enough that it’s usable, and it’s definitely not an ugly layout if very pragmatic.

The module is meant to be fast and brutal, and features a 3-day schedule to that effect. There’s a lot happening here, and because of that complexity I wish there were a little more specificity to the doom clock — not “abduct people” but specific NPCs, not “wreck structures” but these particular locations are gone. The set up is not complex, but to be honest isn’t explained well — it took some flicking back and forth to clarify whether a given reference to the Baron was to his imposter or not, for example. This part of the module ends at page 4, however, and feels very undercooked: The Cultists seem to be the primary enemy here, and the dungeon crawl — a neat one-pager — is their temple, but the actual solution to the problem is unrelated to them and in a ship in the harbour. The conceit for this module is far better than the execution.

The rest of the module is supplementary: The town and its sewers are detailed, for example, as are four myths that are basically adventure seeds that would make for a few extra sessions on the island. These are all neatly written, and compelling enough, but alternate between too verbose for my taste and extreme workmanlike brevity.

These disparate elements doing really hold together well for me. While there are seeds for an exciting and interesting location in Salthaven, there isn’t connective tissue enough for me to run in it without significant improvisation or a lot of my own prep; I’d rather just run something else given the case. But the location, people and story are compelling, and module itself is well enough put together that I feel like there is a fun short campaign on this island, if only the author were to revisit it and flesh it out with a mind to referees other than himself running it. As is, Salthaven feels like a well produced set of notes on a home campaign more than anything else.

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